Disney Infinity 2.0: Marvel Super Heroes brings a fresh set of figurines to Disney’s ambitious sand-box video game. Marvel toys such as Iron Man and The Hulk will unlock in-game characters and content in the upcoming game. While some may suggest this is just Disney leveraging its almost endless line-up of well known characters, there is actually more to Disney Infinity 2.0 than that.

For starters the game moves beyond current generation consoles and arrives on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. This not only offers a graphical bump but also expands the scale of the environments in which you play. Cityscapes in 2.0 weigh in at around four times the size of similar spaces in last year’s game.

Maybe because of this extra ambition, or maybe because of issues with last year’s Wii game, this is the moment we wave goodbye to Nintendo’s long in the tooth platform in favour of the Wii U. This will be a pain for some families who will feel pressured to upgrade their system (or playing Skylanders Trap Team instead), but it is hard to see how this could have been avoided without compromising the level of ambition in the game.

Game-play itself gets something of an update with characters being more clearly defined in different classes. This of course ties in with the expanded cast of Marvel heroes and leads into the new Skills Tree aspect of character development.

Along with bringing a more mature franchise to the game, things are also nudged in a role play direction. This is seen most squarely in the way characters are upgraded. Whereas the previous progression was largely linear we now have a complex grid of ways to customise our heroes. It’s certainly a nice touch and makes more sense of saving all that progress back to the toy.

At the other end of the spectrum younger players are not forgotten either. The Toy Box has a slew of enhancements that make creating levels easier. Along with a greater focus on pre-made mini-games for each franchise there are also helper bots that will automatically finish off the worlds you have started making.

Younger players may well be excited about Marvel characters in Disney Infinity but it seems unlikely that Marvel is all we will get this year. The point of Disney Infinity is its modularity, and cost effective route to bringing movie tie-in game to market. I would be surprised if we don’t see something for Planes Fire & Rescue along with other Disney properties.

Overall the Hollywood event was well judged, with Disney not holding back. More than once there were veiled comments about Skylanders, with jokes about its “innovative jumping feature” -- something used to highlight Marvel Heroes super jump ability in Infinity. Also in terms of sales Disney quickly underlined just how well the first game had done, claiming it to be the “best-selling new hybrid toy / video game of 2013” according to the NPD Group’s video games retail sales data.

With the Marvel angle likely to expand their audience in an older direction, and ongoing interest from the younger demographic, it seems likely to be another strong year for Disney Infinity.

Andy Robertson is a freelance family gaming expert for the BBC and runs Family Gamer TV.